- PlayStation ››
- RPG ››
- Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy IX
- April 04, 2002 15:49 PM PST
- Email this!
Final Fantasy IX, the role-playing game with the paradox name, is finally here - but how should you get going? Check out our ProTip guide for tips on getting started, duking it out with the enemy, and settling in with a relaxing game of cards.
Getting StartedNeed some tips to help you earn your adventuring legs? Here's some things you can do to get started to make the going a bit easier?
After the Queen commands Steiner and Beatrix to go find her daughter, return immediately to talk to her and she'll give you a belated parting gift.
In the mock swordfight during the play for Queen Brahne, you've got to follow Blank's instructions - and it isn't just accuracy, but speed, that determines how impressed the crowd is, and how much Gil reward you get as a result.
As Vivi, you can play jump-rope in the town square before the play begins, and you can get your hands on some excellent Quad Mist cards if you're persistent enough.
Mogs not only act as save points, they've also got some sort of underground postal route - and they want you to be their carrier. The first Mog you need to deliver a letter to lives in a hollowed out log near a spring in the Evil Forest.
The first opportunity to build up your Quad Mist card collection is in Dali town - the shopkeeper near the town entrance likes to play and has a good starter deck to clean out.
On the Battleground
Out on the battleground, things can get extra hairy. Here's some survival tips, and a few of the nuances of spells and abilities you may not be aware of?.
When you use Steiner's Sword Magic attacks, Vivi's magic and Steiner's attack power are added together to deliver one awesome combined blow? but only Steiner loses his turn and his MP. Vivi's Active Time status and MP count remains exactly the same.
In the Final Fantasy universe, the Elements aren't necessarily paired off directly against one another like in other role playing games. Fire does extra damage to ice, but ice doesn't necessarily do more harm to fire. Lighting deals extra damage to enemies near water, wind magic doles out extra pain to things in the air, and Earth magic doesn't hurt floating things at all.
Random encounters, annoying as they may be, are your best friends in leveling up? Boss battles don't give you Experience Points, just AP.
Getting pummeled isn't all bad. Every hit you take increases your Trance meter, and when your trance meter is full, you turn into a killing machine. The bigger the beating you're taking, the faster you'll go berserk.
In the battle with the Prison Cage in the Evil forest, the dastardly plant will suck the life out of the character trapped inside its leaves. Don't forget to heal the hostage!
In a return to old school Final Fantasy form, when you're dealing out a magic spell, you can press R1 to spread target all of your foes instead of just one. It doesn't cost any more MP, and the damage is only about halved no matter how many foes are on screen, so it pays to spread the love whenever you're taking on 3 or more enemies at a time.
Gone are the days of materia and messy GF Junction systems - FF9's Ability system is painless and nearly transparent. Just Equip the ability you want to learn and the Battle Gear (helmets, swords, wristbands, whatever) that help you learn it. Get enough AP from battle, and suddenly you can use the Ability without having to equip the corresponding accessory.
Vivi's Focus command makes you lose a turn, and your next magic attack will be more powerful for the same MP cost? but not that much more powerful. Use it only if you're being cautious with MP use.
The Quad Mist Card Game
FF9 brings the card-playing mini-game back, but this ain't quite Triple Triad. Confused about the rules? Wondering what that weird combination of letters and numbers means? Hopefully we can clear some of that up for you.
Playing Quad Mist is pretty simple, and the game isn't plagued with all the weird regional rule changes that made FF8's Triple Triad such a nightmare.
To play, you need two things? at least five Quad Mist playing cards, and an opponent to play against. You get cards from card shops, and random encounters and other Quad Mist Players. Aside from tournaments, you can find out if any random Joe on the street is a Quad Mist player by talking to them with the SQUARE button.
The Quad Mist board is made up of 16 spaces arranged in a 4x4 grid. To play, you and your opponent take turns laying down cards in empty grid spaces until all of the cards are played. Each card has arrows around the edges in 8 directions, sideways and diagonal. When you play a card, if an opponent's card is in a space being pointed at by one of your arrows, one of two things happens?
(A) If the opponent's card has no arrow in the opposite direction, you automatically claim the opponent's card as your own.
(B) If the opponent's card has an arrow in the opposite direction, a Card Battle ensues based on the cards' stats (see below). If you win, the opponent's card becomes yours, and any card that the newly acquired card is pointing to becomes yours as well via a Combo. If you lose, however, the same rules apply to you.
At the beginning of the hand, you select five cards from your deck that you'll be playing with. Powerful cards are good, but make sure you've got a good balance of cards with arrows pointing in all the 8 different directions. There's nothing worse than being forced to play only in the upper-left corner of the board because you didn't pay attention to your arrows.
Play begins with a random coin toss? if red lands face up, your opponent goes first. If blue lands face up, you get the opening move. The game will randomly fill the board up with up to five "stone" tiles - you are not allowed to place a card on these tiles.
If you manage to end the game with more cards in your possession, you'll get to pick one of your opponent's cards, as long as it was one that was in your possession at the game's end. Nab a "perfect" (that is, if you wind up with all 10 card at the end), and you get to keep all 5 of the cards in your opponent's hand for your own collection. If your opponent wins, though, he gets to do the same. In the case of a draw, nothing happens at all.
Card Battles work like this? each card has four stat numbers on it. The first number is the "attack" power, the second is the "elemental status" (P or M, which determines which defense number will come into play), and the third and fourth are the two "defense" numbers. It sounds messy, it's because it is, but there's not much you can do about it. Essentially, the bigger the number the better, but every battle is still determined by a random behind-the-scenes "die roll" - so even the greatest of cards can (and will) be beaten down by lady luck.
The best strategy is to try and place your "weakest" cards against walls so that their arrow-less sides aren't facing the play field. In Quad Mist, the best offense is a strong defense.
